Richard Whittall:

The Globalist's Top Ten Books in 2016: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Middle East Eye: "

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer is one of the weightiest, most revelatory, original and important books written about sport"

“The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer has helped me immensely with great information and perspective.”

Bob Bradley, former US and Egyptian national coach: "James Dorsey’s The Turbulent World of Middle Eastern Soccer (has) become a reference point for those seeking the latest information as well as looking at the broader picture."

Alon Raab in The International Journal of the History of Sport: “Dorsey’s blog is a goldmine of information.”

Play the Game: "Your expertise is clearly superior when it comes to Middle Eastern soccer."

Andrew Das, The New York Times soccer blog Goal: "No one is better at this kind of work than James Dorsey"

David Zirin, Sports Illustrated: "Essential Reading"

Change FIFA: "A fantastic new blog'

Richard Whitall of A More Splendid Life:

"James combines his intimate knowledge of the region with a great passion for soccer"

Christopher Ahl, Play the Game: "An excellent Middle East Football blog"

Thursday, December 22, 2016

RSIS
Commentary is a platform to provide timely and, where appropriate,
policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical issues and contemporary developments.
The views of the authors are their own and do not represent the official
position of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU. These
commentaries may be reproduced electronically or in print with prior permission
from RSIS and due recognition to the author(s) and RSIS. Please email: RSISPublications@ntu.edu.sgfor feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentary, Yang Razali Kassim.

No.
310/2016 dated 22 December 2016

Towards a New World Order
in Eurasia?The Role of Russia and
China

By
James M Dorsey

Synopsis

A new Russian-led, China-backed Eurasia-centred world order may be in the
making against the backdrop of alleged Russian cyber warfare against the US and
Europe. Analysts see a pattern in Russian moves that could serve China’s
interests should US president-elect Donald Trump adopt a more confrontational
approach towards Beijing.Commentary

SUGGESTIONS THAT Russian President Vladimir Putin is bent on creating a new
Russia-led and China-backed Eurasia-centred world order by undermining Western
democratic institutions may be a crackpot conspiracy theory. Yet that may not
be so far-fetched against the backdrop of US allegations of Russia’s waging
cyber warfare against the US, German intelligence sounding the alarm bell, East
European leaders having their fears confirmed and Moscow and Beijing reaching
out to Western supporters of the idea.

Whether conspiracy theory or
not, western intelligence agencies and many analysts see a pattern in Russian
moves that would serve Chinese interests, particularly if US president-elect
Donald J Trump adopts a more confrontational approach towards Beijing. The
analysts believe that the sum total of Russian activity amounts to an attempt
to undermine trust in democratic structures and manipulate elections.Turkish Approach to
Eurasia

Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly subscribed to conspiracy
theories alleging Western backing for the failed coup attempt in July against
his government and a mysterious international financial cabal seeking to
undermine the Turkish economy. In response, Erdogan has applied for Turkish
membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that groups Central
Asian states with China and Russia.

Bent on enhancing his personal power, Erdogan is not about to fully rupture
relations with the West but is happy to play both ends against the middle by
publicly aligning himself with concepts of Russian-backed Eurasianists.

A left-wing secularist, Dogu Perincek, who spent six years in prison for
allegedly being part of a military-led cabal to stage a military coup, was long
a fringe voice calling on Erdogan to break ties with the West and align himself
with Russia and China. Perincek’s
worldview -- one that envisions an alliance between Russia, China and Turkey
that would replace the US-led international order -- is gaining currency in
Ankara, Moscow and Beijing, according to a prominent Turkish intellectual,
Mustafa Akyol and other well-known pundits.

The rise of Perincek’s Homeland Party, dubbed the Russian lobby by Akyol in an
article in Al-Monitor, comes on the back of its ability to backchannel a
reconciliation with Russia following a rupture in relations and a crippling
Russian economic boycott in the wake of Turkey’s downing in 2015 of a Russian
warplane.

Perincek, together with deputy Homeland leader Ismail Hakki Pekin, a former
head of Turkish military intelligence with extensive contacts in Moscow
including Putin’s foreign policy advisor Alexander Dugin, mediated the
reconciliation with Erdogan’s tacit approval. They were supported by Turkish
businessmen close to the president who were severely affected by the boycott,
and ultra-nationalist Eurasianist military officers.

Making Inroads

Several factors have worked in favour of the Eurasianist idea. The first is the
increasingly strained relations between Turkey and the West over the latter’s
perceived lack of support following this summer’s failed military attempt to
topple Erdogan. The second is a Western refusal to crack down on the Hizmet
movement led by exiled imam Fethullah Gulen, who Turkey holds responsible for
the unsuccessful coup. The third is Western criticism of Erdogan’s wholesale
crackdown on his critics. Differences over Syria have intensified the
pro-Eurasianist thinking.

Erdogan’s purported alignment with the Eurasianists fits neatly into an
apparently larger Russian effort to fuel populist and right wing sentiment in
the West and interfere in the affairs of former Soviet states. Together with
China, whose One Belt, One Road initiative seeks to tie Eurasia together
through infrastructure and trade, Russia seeks to reach out to Western
intellectuals and politicians whose views stroke with Moscow’s ambition.

Outgoing US President Barack Obama has blamed Putin personally for hacking into
Democratic Party computers to undermine Hilary Clinton’s presidential bid. A
New York Times investigation concluded that Russian cyberwar had played a key
role in defeating Democratic candidates in local races for the House of
Representatives.

Germany’s head of foreign intelligence Bruno Kahl warned last month that Russia
might try to undermine Chancellor Angela Merkel in upcoming elections. “We have
evidence that cyber attacks are taking place that have no purpose other than to
elicit political uncertainty. The perpetrators are interested in delegitimising
the democratic process as such, regardless of who that ends up helping. We have
indications that (the attacks) comes from the Russian region,” Kahl told German
newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Russian Funding

German media reported earlier this year that the Russian embassy in Berlin had
co-funded a security policy seminar hosted by the Alternative for Germany party
that is riding a populist wave with its anti-immigrant and anti-European Union
positions. In France, National Front leader Marine Le Pen, a frontrunner in
presidential elections, stands accused of being beholden to Moscow because of a
US$10.2 million Russian loan to her party.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek warned
that Russia was pursuing a “divide and conquer” policy in Europe by trying to
boost Eurosceptic populists. Officials of former Soviet states say their
long-standing warnings of subversive Russian activity were ignored by the Obama
administration.

To be sure the US and the West too have a long history of waging disinformation
and destabilisation campaigns. As a result this may be a case of the pot
calling the kettle black, yet one wrong doesn’t justify another.

For their part Moscow and Beijing have been reaching out to Western
intellectuals and journalists who have been charting Eurasianist advances.
Prominent Turkish journalist Murat Yelkin warned recently that Perincek’s group
was exploiting its “close access to Erdogan” to promote an “elaborate plan”
that would rupture Turkey’s relations with the EU. This it would do by
reintroducing the death penalty, something the Turkish leader has advocated,
and reversing restrictive EU regulations adopted by Turkey.

None of this amounts to incontrovertible evidence of a Russian-Chinese plot.
The West however risks ignoring at its peril what could be a pattern rather
than a string of unrelated incidents that foreshadows a new world order that
ranges across the Eurasian mega continent.

James M Dorsey PhD is Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and
co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of University of Wurzburg, Germany.
Click HERE
to read this commentary online.

Thursday, December 15, 2016

RSIS
Commentary is a platform to provide timely and, where appropriate,
policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical issues and contemporary
developments. The views of the authors are their own and do not represent the
official position of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU.
These commentaries may be reproduced electronically or in print with prior
permission from RSIS and due recognition to the author(s) and RSIS. Please
email: RSISPublications@ntu.edu.sgfor feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentary, Yang Razali Kassim.

No. 304/2016 dated 15 December
2016

The Rise of Trump and Its Global Implications

Trump’s Middle East:Back to the Future

By James M. Dorsey

Synopsis

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s clearest indication yet of his policy
approach towards the Middle East and North Africa was tucked into a recent
thank-you speech in Cincinnati. It is a transaction-based return to support of
autocracy that is likely to tie him into knots and reinforce drivers of
militancy and political violence.Commentary

IN A little-noticed thank you speech in Cincinnati, a stop on his tour of
battleground states that secured his electoral victory, President-elect Donald
J. Trump recently vowed to break with past United States efforts to “topple
regimes and overthrow governments” in the Middle East and North Africa. Trump
was likely referring to costly US military interventions in Afghanistan and
Iraq that toppled the Taliban and Saddam Hussein but failed to produce stable
regimes while giving half-hearted US support for democracy and the
strengthening of civil society.

“Our goal is stability not chaos... We will partner with any nation that is
willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism…
In our dealings with other countries, we will seek shared interest wherever
possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding and goodwill,” Trump
said. In effect, the president-elect was reiterating long standing US policy
without the lip service past US presidents paid to US values such as democracy,
human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of religion.Traumatic Consequences

It was a policy that backfired with traumatic consequences for the US.
President George W. Bush, in a rare recognition of the pitfalls of decades of
US policy in the Middle East and North Africa, acknowledged within weeks of the
9/11 attacks that support for autocratic regimes that squashed all expressions
of dissent had created the feeding ground for jihadist groups focused on
striking at Western targets.

That was no more true then than it is today with significantly stepped-up
repression across the Middle East fuelling civil strife, humanitarian
catastrophes, and the swelling the ranks of militant and jihadist groups.

If anything, Trump’s seemingly status quo-based, transactional approach to the
Middle East and North Africa risks exacerbating the drivers of violence and
militancy in the region and threatens to enmesh his administration in a
labyrinth of contradictory pressures.

One lesson that emerges from post-World War Two North Africa and the Middle
East is that the region will go to any length to ensure that it is a focus of
attention. US administrations come to office with lofty goals and ambitions,
only to see their agenda driven by acts on the ground in the region. The Trump
administration is unlikely to fare any better.

Multiple pitfalls

The pitfalls are multiple, as follows:

• Syria: Backed by Russia and Iran, Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad may
be gaining the upper hand in the country’s brutal six-year war, but that is
likely to prove a pyrrhic victory. The likelihood of Syria returning
territorially and politically to the pre-war status quo ante is nil. Al-Assad’s
Alawites like Syrian Kurds will not see their safety and security guaranteed by
a Syrian state dominated by remnants of the old-regime.

Al-Assad, with a long list of scores to settle, moreover will be damaged goods
for whom the knives will be out once the guns fall silent. And that silence will
at best be temporary with foreign forces covertly and overtly continuing to
intervene. Not to mention the fallout of an angry, disillusioned generation
that has known nothing but brutality, violence and despair and has nothing to
lose.

• Russia: A partnership with Russia may initially reshape Syria but will
be troubled by radically different views of Iran. While Russia backs Iran,
Trump has promised to take a harder line towards the Islamic republic even if
he stops short of terminating the nuclear agreement concluded by the Obama
administration and the international community.

• Islamic State: Bringing Russia on board in a concerted allied effort
to destroy IS will contribute to depriving the jihadist group of its
territorial base in Iraq and Syria but will do little to help put the two
countries back together as nation states. Nor will it address underlying
drivers of jihadist violence fuelled by disenfranchisement, marginalisation,
repression, regimes that fail to deliver economic and social goods, and the
unilateral re-writing of social contracts.

• Egypt: Blinded by a focus on the fight against jihadism, support for
general-turned-president Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi, one of the country’s most
repressive rulers, could prove to be an example of the pitfalls of
uncritical backing of autocracy as dissatisfaction mounts with failed economic
and social policies.

• Israel and Palestine: A policy that is less critical of Israeli policy
towards the West Bank and Gaza and that moves away from support for the
creation of an independent Palestinian state will complicate relations with the
Arab and Muslim world. It will also further undermine the pro-peace faction led
by President Mahmoud Abbas and strengthen Islamist groups such as Hamas.

Quintessential Approach

In many ways, Trump represents a quintessential approach towards foreign policy
expressed by a US diplomat 40 years ago as he defended autonomy agreed at the
time by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat as the response to Palestinian aspirations. Questioned about the
viability of the concept, the diplomat said with no consideration of the
consequences and cost of failure: “We Americans are very pragmatic. We keep on
trying. If one thing doesn’t work, we try something else.”

To be sure, Trump has yet to articulate a cohesive Middle East policy. The
president-elect has nonetheless promised “a new foreign policy that finally
learns from the mistakes of the past.”

In many ways, Trump’s statements hold out the promise of harking back to a
policy that was first seriously dented by the 9/11 attacks and ultimately
punctured by the popular Arab revolts of 2011 and their aftermath.

Trump’s foreign policy and national security line-up raises the spectre of an
approach to the Middle East and North Africa that will further stir the
region’s demons and set the scene for an administration policy that is driven
by events on the ground rather than a cohesive, thought-out strategy.

James M. Dorsey PhD is Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University and co-director
of the Institute of Fan Culture of University of Würzburg, Germany.
Click HERE
to read this commentary online.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Twin bombs in central Istanbul may not have targeted Besiktas
JK’s newly refurbished Vodafone Arena stadium, but underscore the propaganda
value of attacking a soccer match for both jihadist and non-jihadist groups.
They also raise questions about counter-terrorism strategy.

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, a splinter of the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK), claimed responsibility for Saturday’s blasts that targeted
police on duty to maintain security at a match between top Turkish clubs Besiktas
and Bursapor. Thirty-eight of the 30 people killed in the attacks were riot
police.

Unlike the targeting of stadiums by jihadist groups such as
the Islamic State’s attack on the Stade de France in Paris in November last
year and its reportedly subsequent foiled attempts to bomb international
matches in Belgium and Germany, the Falcon’s operation appeared designed to maximize
police casualties and minimize civilian casualties.

American-Turkish soccer scholar and writer John Konuk
Blasing reporting
from Istanbul during the blasts noted that the attacks occurred two hours
after the match attended by more than 40,000 people had ended. Mr. Blasing argued
that the timing called into question President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s effort to
capitalize on the attacks by asserting that they had been “aimed to maximise
casualties” irrespective of their identity.

Mr. Blasing reasoned that “the target of the stadium was
chosen in order to send a message, a twisted and violent message that says: ‘We
can do worse damage if we wanted to. Right now, we are attacking the state, not
citizens. But if we want to target citizens, we can do that too.’”

With other words, Kurds much like the Islamic State or Al
Qaeda in the past, Boko Haram in Nigeria or Al Shabab in Somalia could one day
also target soccer matches that maximize the publicity effect of their operations
because the games are often broadcast locally, regionally and internationally.

Mr. Erdogan’s assertion that the Istanbul attacks sought to
cause random casualties served two purposes: to lump together all forms of
political violence, jihadist attacks that seek to cause maximum civilian
casualties, and in the case of militant Turkish Kurdish groups, the targeting of
a state that long suppressed Kurdish political and cultural rights and
cynically derailed promising peace talks in June 2015 when it served the electoral
needs of the president’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The breakdown
in the talks occurred as Mr. Erdogan was preparing for a second round of
elections in November of that year after June polls had produced a hung parliament.

To be sure, the government and the PKK share equal blame for
the collapse of the six-year old peace talks that followed the killing by the
PKK of three Turkish policemen in June 2015. Similarly, south-eastern Turkey
continued to experience sporadic violence during the ceasefire agreed upon at
the outset of the talks and the PKK had not fully lived up to its commitment to
disarm and withdraw from Turkish territory.

Nonetheless, analysis
with a supercomputer of two years’ worth of geospatial data that sought to
establish how militant Kurdish groups perceived threats suggested that the
ceasefire on Turkish soil had been largely successful prior to the killing of
the policemen. International relations scholar Akin Unver, who conducted the
analysis noted that the PKK had focused its military activity in 2014 and early
2015 on fighting the Islamic State in Syria in a bid to further the national
aspirations of its Syrian Kurdish brothers.

Amid Turkish and Kurdish doubts about the sincerity of their
interlocutors in the peace talks, PKK support for the Syrian Kurds challenged
Turkish policy that often was far more focussed on stymieing the rise of
Kurdish nationalism and the emergence of Syrian Kurdish entity than on
defeating the Islamic state that it at times viewed as a bulwark against the
Kurds. The killing of the Turkish policemen was the convenient straw that broke
the camel’s back.

“There is only one thing both sides agree upon: in the
months before the collapse there was not much negotiating going on. Our data
show there was not much fighting either,” Mr. Unver wrote in an article in the Financial
Times.

Mr. Unver warned that the renewed hostilities with the Kurds
coupled with Mr. Erdogan’s crackdown on the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy
Party (HDP) whose leaders and members of parliament have been targeted and/or
detained in the wake of July’s failed military coup, “serves as fodder for
disenchantment and radicalisation” among the Kurds.

Mr. Unver’s analysis has a bearing on Mr. Erdogan’s effort
to lump all political violence together. To be sure, distinctions do not
justify the use of violence, nor does the targeting of police officers rather
than civilians give it any greater moral value.

The distinction is nonetheless significant in establishing
the facts on the basis of which strategies to prevent escalation and the
further shedding of innocent blood can be prevented. More than 30 years of
armed confrontation between the Turkish military and Kurdish militants in which
upwards of 40,000 people have been killed have failed to resolve the conflict.

Mr. Unver’s analysis suggests the pursuit of a negotiated,
political solution, however fraught, may have been a more promising approach at
a time that political violence perpetrated by multiple groups has wracked
Turkey. Not counting devastating jihadist attacks, Saturday’s bombings were the
sixth Kurdish operation this year.

“It is chilling that this may only be a prelude to much
worse in Turkey,” Mr. Blasing noted. Much worse does not bode well and could
increasingly turn soccer pitches among others into prime targets.

Saturday, December 10, 2016

A lack of transparency persists when it comes to migrant workers’ rights, a new report has found. But who is to blame?

The plight of migrant workers in Gulf Arab countries was thrown into the spotlight several years ago when investigations revealed how dismal the working and housing conditions were for those building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Countless human rights violations were reported, revealing a dark side to the ‘beautiful game’.

The kafala sponsorship system, which is in place throughout the region, is widely seen as a source of exploitation. Migrant workers have reported confiscated passports, held back wages and employers’ refusal to grant exit visas.

Under heightened public pressure, governments and companies pledged to improve the situation. The emir of Qatar approved new rules to the sponsorship system, supposed to make it easier to change jobs and being able to leave the country. How much has really changed?

A new report on construction companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar, both major employers of migrant labour with large infrastructure projects underway, indicates the problem persists. “Construction companies operating in the Gulf are failing to protect migrant workers from abusive working arrangements, showing a concerning lack of transparency on the safeguards they have in place,” the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre said. Out of 100 companies, only 22 responded to a survey regarding the measures they are taking to stop the exploitation of migrant workers. Less than half of them had publicly available human rights commitments.

Speaking to The World Weekly, the NGO’s press officer, Joe Bardwell, was unequivocal about the importance of transparency, calling the fact that companies are not demonstrating their commitment a “major problem”.

“Transparency on human rights issues has been an important driver of progress in other sectors,” the report notes, pointing to the establishment of best practices. Several of those who failed to respond are involved in the construction of World Cup stadiums and three had received an award for excellence in labour relations in the UAE.

The lack of engagement “indicates not much action has been taken”, Mr. Bardwell said. This did not mean that there aren’t companies that are taking action and are not sharing it, he added, while stating that some companies were indeed leading the way in establishing best practices.

The suicide in September of an Indian construction worker at a building site in Qatar weeks after asking his employer to pay outstanding wages showed once again how precarious the situation of many migrant workers remains, especially amidst a downturn in oil prices hitting the energy-dependent countries in the Gulf.

For Dr. James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, it was clear that companies don’t feel compelled to engage, as there was “little pressure” on them, not least from FIFA in the case of World Cup host Qatar.

Both the UAE and Qatar were the countries that have taken the most steps in the region to address migrant workers’ rights, Dr. Dorsey, who runs a blog on the entanglement between football and politics in the Middle East, noted. Nevertheless, a lack of implementation in Qatar showed that neither the government nor FIFA have applied sufficient pressure to enforce mandated standards. The situation in the UAE was similar, he said.



For players and fans, a World Cup stadium is a place of dreams. For some of the workers who spoke to us, it can feel like a living nightmare.”

Salil Shetty , Amnesty International secretary general

As violations of migrant workers’ rights in Qatar and allegations of corruption made the headlines, the international football body faced increasing pressure to act; some even called for Qatar’s hosting rights to be suspended.

While seeing the government as the body primarily responsible for creating and implementing rules, Dr. Dorsey said FIFA had a responsibility as well. The organisation, mired by corruption scandals, earlier this year endorsed a report by John Ruggie, a former UN special representative for business and human rights. “FIFA is fully committed to respecting human rights,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said, thanking Professor Ruggie for his recommendations on how to improve the body’s human rights record.

Despite these assurances, news broke this week that legal action against FIFA was filed in a Swiss court on behalf of a Bangladeshi migrant worker. “The Swiss court is asked to rule that FIFA acted wrongfully by selecting Qatar for the World Cup 2022 without demanding the assurance that Qatar observes fundamental human and labour rights of migrant construction workers, including the abolition of the kafala system,” a statement by the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation read.

Mr. Bardwell saw companies as responsible, while also highlighting that there had not been enough pressure from all sides.

“The awarding of the World Cup has already induced change,” Dr. Dorsey said, stating that Qatar was the only state in the Gulf region that had engaged with its critics. While praising the Qatari foundations for the policies they have adopted on migrant workers as a “start”, he urged that more needs to be done.

In the current global environment where labour rights are being put on the back burner, progress going forward looks doubtful, he concluded.

The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre expected more engagement after the release of the report. “Scrutiny is only going to increase,” Mr. Bardwell told The World Weekly.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Two Bangladeshi and a Dutch trade union have sued FIFA in a
Swiss court in legal proceedings that challenge the world soccer body’s
awarding to Qatar of the 2022 World Cup because of the Gulf state’s
controversial labour regime. The case could call into question group’s status
as a non-profit and, if successful, open the door to a wave of claims against FIFA
as well as Qatar and other Gulf states who employ millions of migrant workers.

The legal proceedings come at a crucial moment in efforts by
trade unions and human rights groups to work with Qatar on reforming its kafala
or labour sponsorship system that puts workers at the mercy of their employers.

Those efforts, a unique undertaking in a part of the world
in which governments by and large refuse to engage and repress or bar their
critics, have already produced initial results. The question is how far Qatar
intends to push ahead with reform and to what degree it will feel the need to
do so in a world in which the rise of populism has pushed human and other rights
onto the backburner.

Trade unions and human rights argue that Qatar since winning
World Cup hosting rights six years ago has had sufficient time to bring its
labour system in line with international standards and that its moves so far
fall short of that.

A key milestone alongside the trade unions’ legal action and
a separate Swiss judicial inquiry into the integrity of the Qatari World Cup
bid is a looming deadline set by the International Labour Organization (ILO)
for Qatar to act on promises of reform that it has made.

The ILO warned last March that it would establish a Commission
of Inquiry if Qatar failed to act within a year. Such commissions are among the
ILO’s most powerful tools to ensure compliance with international treaties. The
UN body has only established 13 such commissions in its century-long history.
The last such commission was created in 2010 to force Zimbabwe to live up to
its obligations.

The Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV), supported
by the Bangladesh Free Trade Union Congress (BFTUC) and the Bangladesh Building
and Wood Workers Federation (BBWWF), filed their complaint against FIFA on
behalf of a Bangladeshi migrant worker, Nadim Sharaful Alam.

Mr. Alam was forced as is the norm in recruitment for Qatar
to pay $4,300 to a recruitment agency in violation of Qatari law and FIFA
standards that stipulate that employers should shoulder the cost of hiring. To
raise the money, Mr. Alam had to mortgage land he owned, according to FNV
lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld. Mr. Alam is also demanding compensation for being the
victim of “modern slavery,” Ms. Zegveld said.

The FNV said in a statement that it wanted the court to rule
that “FIFA acted wrongfully by selecting Qatar for the World Cup 2022 without
demanding the assurance that Qatar observes fundamental human and labour rights
of migrant construction workers, including the abolition of the kafala system.”
FIFA is a Swiss incorporated legal entity.

The trade unions’ further demand that the court order FIFA to
ensure that in the run-up to the World Cup workers’ rights are safeguarded by
pressuring the Gulf state to enact and implement adequate and effective labour
reforms takes on added significance following the group’s decision to take over
responsibility for preparations of World Cups starting with the Qatar
tournament.

A Swiss government-sponsored unit of the Paris-based
Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which groups 34 of
the world’s richest countries, last year defined FIFA as a multi-national
rather than a non-profit that was bound by the OECD’s guidelines. The decision meant
that the soccer group would be responsible for upholding of the human and labour
rights of workers employed in Qatar on World Cup-related projects. A court
ruling upholding that principle would reinforce FIFA’s status as a business
rather than a non-governmental organization.

FIFA has repeatedly said that it was “fully committed to do
its utmost to ensure that human rights are respected on all FIFA World Cup
sites and operations and services directly related to the FIFA World Cup.” FIFA
has recently included provisions for labour standards in World Cup contracts
that kick in with the 2026 tournament.

The decision to take on responsibility for World Cups means that
FIFA no longer can hide behind assertions that it has no legal authority to
impose its will on host countries. In a letter to Ms. Zegveld and the trade
unions’ Swiss lawyers date 16 October 2016, FIFA Deputy Secretary General Marco
Villiger asserted however that “FIFA refutes any and all assertions…regarding
FIFA's wrongful conduct and liability for human rights violations taking place
in Qatar.” Ms. Zegveld noted that FIFA had refrained from denying the
violations themselves.

A recent survey of construction companies involved in World
Cup-related infrastructure projects in Qatar called into question whether the
Gulf state and FIFA were doing all they could do to enforce international
labour standards.

Less than a quarter of the 100 companies approached for the
survey by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre deemed it appropriate
to respond. Less than 40 percent publicly expressed a commitment to human
rights and only 17 percent referred to international standards. Only three companies
publicly acknowledged rights of migrant workers.

A human rights researcher with extensive experience in
studying recruitment of migrant labour in Asia said the system was controlled
by an international crime syndicate that benefitted from collusion between corrupt
senior government officials, company executives, and recruitment agencies that cooperated
across national borders at the expense of millions of unskilled workers. “Billions
of dollars are involved, all off the books, not taxed that come from migrant
workers,” the researcher said.

A trade union court victory could open the door to an
avalanche of cases by migrant workers demanding compensation for illegal
recruitment practices as well as being victims of a system that curtails
freedom of contract as well as basic human freedoms and workers’ rights. Those
cases could target not only FIFA but also Qatar and other Gulf states that
operate a kafala system. “This could just be the beginning,” said a trade union
activist.

Monday, December 5, 2016

A recent survey of construction companies involved in World
Cup-related infrastructure projects in Qatar raises questions about whether the
Gulf state and world soccer body FIFA are doing all that could do to enforce international
standards for the living and working conditions of migrant workers as well as
adherence to human rights.

The issue of Qatar and FIFA’s sincerity is underscored by the
fact that a majority of 100 companies operating in Qatar as well as the United
Arab Emirates, which prides itself on enacting the region’s most advanced
labour-related legislation and regulation, felt no need in a recent survey to
be transparent about their commitment to labour and human rights. The apparent
lack of pressure on companies suggests that Qatar and FIFA have so far passed
on opportunities to enforce adherence to standards.

Both Qatar and FIFA have been under pressure from human
rights groups and trade unions to reform the Gulf state’s onerous kafala or
labour sponsorship system that deprives workers of basic rights and puts them
at the mercy of their employers. The pressure on Qatar coupled with economic
difficulties as the result of tumbling energy prices have prompted virtually
all Gulf states to tinker with their labour regimes.

To be sure, Qatar has responded to the pressure by becoming
the only Gulf state to engage with its critics. It has also promised to
legislate initial reforms that fall short of activists’ demands by the end of
the year. Several major Qatari institutions, including the 2022 World Cup
organizing committee and Qatar Foundation, have adopted standards and model
contracts that significantly improve workers’ living and working conditions.

Those standards have yet in their totality to be enshrined
in national legislation. Even that however would not resolve all issues, first
and foremost among them the requirement of an exit visa to leave the country.

An Amnesty International report published earlier this year
charged that migrant workers involved in World Cup-related infrastructure were
still subjected to “appalling” human rights abuses six years after the hosting
of the tournament was awarded to Qatar and at the halfway mark since the
hosting rights were awarded to the Gulf state. The 2022 Qatari committee has
said issues in the report have since been addressed.

Qatar moreover recently announced that a major international
union, Building and Wood Workers International (BWI), would be included in
inspections of World Cup construction sites in the Gulf state. Italian company Salini
Impregilo, one the companies surveyed, earlier signed an agreement with BWI and
Italian construction unions to promote and respect human rights and has allowed
BWI to visit its worker accommodations in Qatar.

The onus on FIFA to ensure adherence to workers and human
rights meanwhile is about to increase with the soccer body’s decision to take
over responsibility for preparations of World Cups starting with the Qatar
tournament.

FIFA earlier this year endorsed a report it had commissioned
from Harvard international affairs and human rights professor John Ruggie, a
former United Nations Secretary-General special representative for business and
human rights. Mr. Ruggie provided advice on how FIFA should embed the UN’s
Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights into everything it does.

Less than a quarter of the companies approached for the
survey by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre deemed it appropriate
to respond despite FIFA and Qatar’s public commitments to workers and human
rights. Less than 40 percent of the companies approached publicly expressed a
commitment to human rights and only 17 percent refer to international
standards. Only three publicly acknowledge rights of migrant workers.

The survey noted that three UAE companies - Arabtec, BK Gulf
(a subsidiary of UK-headquartered Balfour Beatty), Habtoor Leighton Group, and
Al Jaber Group – that had failed to respond to the survey were recipients of
the Emirates’ 2016 Taqdeer Award for excellence in labour relations.

Similarly, none of the companies with headquarters in Asia --
China, India, Japan, Malaysia and South Korea – responded.

“The lack of response represents a missed opportunity to
demonstrate the actions they are taking to adhere to the Workers’ Welfare
Standards of Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy,” the 2022
Qatari committee, the survey noted.

The survey singled out several companies that had taken
steps to improve safeguards for migrant workers. Those companies include Vinci
(QDVC), a joint venture between Qatar Diar Real Estate Investment Company, a
subsidiary of the Gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund, and France’s VINCI (QDVC)
Construction Grand Projects. Ironically, Sherpa, a French human rights group,
accused VINCI last year of employing forced labour and "keeping people in
servitude." VINCI, which employs 3,500 people in Qatar, denied the charges
and threatened to sue Sherpa.

The survey said the willingness of companies to publicly
detail their commitment to workers and human rights was important because “transparency
on human rights issues has been an important driver of progress in other
sectors. It generates examples of best practice that can be shared publicly
with others and replicated, and enables accountability such that civil society,
investors and others can hold companies to their stated actions, or call them
out for inaction.”

Beyond health, safety, worker accommodation and timely payment
of wages, the survey identified fair recruitment based on the principle of the
employer pays, freedom of movement, worker input, and supply chain
accountability as key issues that companies needed to address. The survey noted
that the most progressive companies had found ways to circumvent Gulf
restrictions on freedom of association and collective organisation.

Best practices included personal storage compartments in
workers’ living quarters provided by Vinci (QDVC) and Laing O’Rourke to ensure
that workers have sole custody of their passports in a country in which
employers often illegally confiscate travel documents.

Vinci (QDVC) alongside Laing O’ Rourke, Multiplex, Salini
Impregilo, SNC-Lavalin ensure that recruitment companies that illegally charge
workers exorbitant fees reimbursed those recruited. Workers often arrive in
Qatar and other Gulf states heavily indebted as a result of recruitment fees
even though they are banned by law in Qatar and the UAE.

Carillion, Laing O’Rourke and Salini Impregilo said they
supported the principle of freedom of association by providing workers in the
Gulf with alternative means of expression and collective organising through
worker welfare committees.

“Committed and concerted action by the construction industry
holds the potential to prevent exploitation and drive genuine improvements in
the lives of millions of workers around the world. While our outreach has
identified some promising leading examples, the entire sector has a long way to
travel to fulfil its human rights commitments,” the survey concluded.

Sporticos

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile